Could You Bari a Network?

July 4 seems like a good day to talk about hubris.

You've all read those articles about men and hubris -- the absurd number of men who think they could take a tennis game off Serena Williams or could win a fight against a bear.

I do not share that hubris. But I do have my own version of it. One manifestation is that I honestly believe I could hold my own in an interview with Isaac Chotiner (surely, that's the intellectual equivalent of "win a fight against a bear"). But another that I just realized is that I earnestly think I could successfully Bari a network news program.

Here are the parameters for how I define Bari-ing:

1. You come in with virtually no relevant experience or qualifications aside from being a pundit (check).
2. You remake the news program in line with a particular political ideology.
3. You have the absolute support of the network owners for whatever you do (so if you fail, it won't be simply because you tick off your bosses).

A successful Bari means that the news program is, you know, successful (gains viewers, is influential, etc.). Basically, everything Bari Weiss hasn't done at CBS. (To be honest, I suspect that "Bari" as a verb will inevitably incorporate a tenor of failing at this project. To "Bari" a network is to fail at doing the above in spectacular fashion. One can even slant-rhyme it with "bury". But for purposes of this exercise, we'll associate it with the attempt, not the outcome).

Under this framework, Bari Weiss Bari-ed CBS by trying to turn it into a network Free Press -- alt-center quasi-contrarian sucking up to the powerful.

By contrast, my ideological line would basically be Last Week Tonight without the comedy, and with an especial laser focus on public corruption. Most importantly, though, it wouldn't pull punches. "Supreme Court decimates Voting Rights Act." "White Supremacy Spreads Amongst Trump Administration Officials." "Trump Takes Billions Through Apparent Insider Trading Scheme." No tap dancing around with the rhetoric. Just call it as it is.

Would this work? Would it quench the thirst of American viewers desperate for a news network that doesn't bowdlerize the truth because straightforward descriptions feel "partisan" (someone -- I feel like on Lawyers Guns and Money -- once said something like "the greatest act of partisan media bias is accurately quoting what Republicans say, verbatim")? I dunno. But I earnestly believe it to be so, and that despite lacking any formal qualifications I could make it so, and that's my version of overwhelming male hubris.